Congratulations:
The Odessa refugee community, who have been staying at a refugee center in Romania for three months, celebrated a special event last weekend - a wedding of two graduates of the Tikva Odessa orphanage.
The 23-year-old groom Sevilla and the 22-year-old Libo Lisa had planned to get married in Odessa about three months ago, but the war devoured the cards.
Both managed to escape with their community friends, however the wedding dress and family members remained in the bombed-out Ukraine.
After Sabili's father abandoned him at a young age, his mother raised him until the age of 14 and then sent him to the orphanage in Odessa.
Like him, Lisa's mother abandoned her and her two sisters at a young age, and the father raised them with devotion until he decided to send her to the orphanage.
When they graduated from high school, Seville studied computers at the University of Tikva and today he works for a Canadian high-tech company.
Lisa studied for a bachelor's and master's degree in psychology, and worked in management until the outbreak of the war.
The three months of refugees did not make it any easier for the couple who cared for the family left behind.
"Seville did not want to get married without his mother, and Lisa did not want to get married without her father," says Michal Kastiel, an Israeli emissary in Tikva, who has been accompanying the couple for seven years with her husband Eli.
"We managed to rescue Lisa's father and little sister from the Donetsk region. It was very difficult to get them out of there, and we waited a long time for a humanitarian corridor until they finally managed to rescue them.
"They came frozen and scared, and did not communicate with anyone. They started to open up and relax just before the wedding - even though the nurse cried a lot at the wedding. You can understand that. She came from a place that was really on fire. Seville's mother was very afraid to go the dangerous ways, so the wedding was postponed "Several times until Seville finally came to terms with the fact that his mother would not take part in the wedding."
Sabili and Lisa, a moment before, Photo: Yifat Erlich
Sweeter than honey
In the "Tikva" congregation, led by Rabbi Shlomo Baksht and Rabbi Rafael Kruskal, they made every effort to make the bride and groom happy.
They did so, in part, thanks to two Jews from Romania who sponsored the community and assisted it in everything.
These are Silvio Wexler, Member of the Romanian Parliament and President of the Jewish Federation, and Buddy Kuperberg, Secretary General of the Jewish Federation.
Castiel: "Everyone rallied to make the wedding perfect and fit the couple's dream. And really, in the end, it was an indescribably happy wedding. I do not remember such a happy wedding, in a crazy style, really league. Rent a luxurious hall and take care of the smallest details, including a suite "Luxurious in a boutique hotel - everything to pamper the couple and show them how much we love them. The goal was that they would feel princes, and that God forbid they would not feel that the war had knocked out their most important day."
The wedding dress left in Odessa was successfully brought to Romania, and a local seamstress completed her sewing.
"We were privileged to accompany Lisa and Seville to the canopy, after years of having a very close relationship with them," Castiel says.
"I felt like I was leading my daughter to the canopy. They are really sweet than honey, and it's exciting to see them happy together and calm after a difficult time they went through. It's a new life created out of a place of uncertainty and emissions. We have shown that war will not stop life and joy. us".
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